


No Ground Can Hold Me

by bloodofpyke



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-20
Updated: 2012-04-20
Packaged: 2017-11-04 00:25:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/387607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodofpyke/pseuds/bloodofpyke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set post-ADWD</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Ground Can Hold Me

He could still taste the blood.

Could still taste the blood, but he told himself it was a dream, just a dream (he knew it wasn’t, knew it deep down in his bones, but he pretended he was a child still, pretended there were things he could still wish away).

The room was dark, and he longed for sunlight, wishing again that he could be a raven, could be a wolf, free to fly and run and find his siblings again. _Robb, Sansa, Arya, Rickon_ , _and Jon,_ he thought, and their names tasted like blood on his tongue too.

It was with a groan that he pushed himself up, that his hands groped out in the darkness, fingers searching for Summer, for Meera, for Jojen, for _something._ He came up empty though, and he sat, telling himself it was a dream, just a dream, until he’d almost forgotten the things he’d seen.

***

It wasn’t long until Hodor stumbled by, and Bran called to him, an idea half-formed in his mind already.

“Hodor?” Hodor said, and there was an edge to his voice now that he tried to ignore. _He’s afraid,_ he thought, _but he shouldn’t be, I always leave, I always give him back._

“Hodor,” Bran repeated, his voice soft, and then he blinked and it was over, and he could _walk._

He could walk, but he could still feel Hodor, and he tried to imagine what his soul must look like. _A shivering thing,_ he thought, _with bright, bright eyes,_ and a tremor ran through him at that. _It’s just me,_ he tried to tell Hodor, _and I’ll leave, I’ll leave soon, try not to be scared._

But Hodor wasn’t answering him, couldn’t answer him, so he set off, lumbering through the passages, muttering “Hodor, Hodor” to himself. _He is not the one who needs to be afraid,_ Jojen had said, but then he left like everyone else, and he was afraid, he _was._ He was just the broken boy, the prince without a home, and he was afraid that this was all a dream, that he dying in a snowdrift, was afraid of turning into Lord Brynden, all tangled and ensnared in a tree.

“Hodor,” he muttered, and it was good that no one was around to hear him because there was an sting to the voice that Hodor had never had before; _that didn’t sound like Hodor_ , the boy thought, _that sounded like someone else, like_ father _._ And he shivered at that, and Hodor shivered along with him, that he could sound like his father even now, all the ice cold fury of the North.

And he wondered at that as he wandered the caves, at the idea that maybe his father wasn’t dead, not really, not _truly_ , not if he could make Hodor sound like him, not if he could eat weirwood paste and dream of him in the godswood. He stomped all over the caves until his feet _(Hodor’s feet,_ the boy insisted, _Hodor’s feet)_ were sore and cramped with the cold. He stomped all over, but he couldn’t find them, couldn’t find any trace of the Reeds who’d vanished in the night.

They wound their way back to the bedchamber and suddenly, Bran was back in his body, looking up Hodor from his bed. “Hodor,” he said, trying to keep his voice gentle. “I need to go see Lord Brynden.”

“Hodor,” Hodor said back, but his voice was shaking, and when he lifted Bran from the bed, his skin was ice-cold and the hairs were raised and prickly. _I left,_ Bran thought sullenly. _I gave him back his body, I didn’t_ have _to, but I did._

***

“Where are my friends?” Bran blurted out when he was seated across from Lord Brynden. “Meera and Jojen, where are they?”

A pause, the slightest hesitations, and then, “they had taken ill during the night. They’re in quarantine right now; we can’t afford the sickness spreading.”

It was silent for a moment, and maybe it was a trick of the light, the shadows playing across shadows, but Bran thought he was Lord Brynden smile, a hard, cruel smile, something flashing in the one remaining eye left to him.

***

He didn’t eat the paste that night, but he could _taste_ it, like the sap and seeds were clinging to his throat still, slipping through his veins still.

It was quiet in his room, the silence beating a patten on his brain, and he sighed, rustled his sheets, anything to make some noise, to feel less alone. He wished that Jojen and Meera weren’t sick anymore, that they could be in here with him and maybe Meera could tell them the story about the knight of the laughing tree again. He wished that he wasn’t broken, too, that he could still run and climb like he used to. But he knew it was a useless wish, knew that he was broken forever, so he added to the list, wished that his father had never died, wished that nobody had left, that it was summer still.

Bran twisted the sheets in his hands, shutting his eyes and remembering a goodbye that felt like it had been a hundred years ago. “An adventure,” Robb had promised him, their fingers twined together, and he had been choking back a sob, the moonlight hitting his face until it looked like a mask, all planes and angles. _An adventure_ , Bran thought, but he was alone, and broken, and Robb was off fighting miles and miles and miles away, and the word turned to ash in his mouth.

He tried to fall asleep after that, but he couldn’t, he _couldn’t_ , and he sighed, closed his eyes, and then he wasn’t him anymore, he was a wolf cocking his head and looking at himself, the slight broken boy clutching at sheets. The air smelled different when he was in Summer; sharper, somehow, but stale, like he had been locked inside a wardrobe for a month. 

Summer paced the small room, sick of this place with its stale air, and then suddenly he could hear _screams_ , could feel the vibrations in the ground and he was off, paws scrambling on the hard earth, following the sounds through the maze of tunnels.

“No,” he could hear someone pleading when he got closer, and somewhere the boy was stirring, and he was thinking _Meera, that sounds like Meera,_ and the wolf shook his head, moving closer. _“No,_ ” came the voice again, and it was stronger, it was _angry_ , “you _can’t_ , you _can’t_.”

The girl sounded like she was crying, and then a quieter voice was speaking, saying something about death. _No_ , the boy thought, _he’s just sick, they’re both just sick, they’ll be fine_. Summer growled, ears pricking up, and the boy reached for something, but he couldn’t move, and then he was gasping for breath back in his bed.

The room seemed darker now, somehow, and emptier without Summer’s breathing. Meera’s screams were still echoing in his head and he bit back a scream of his own, his hands pressing to his skull like he could crush the sounds out of his mind, like it made any difference at all. Bran didn’t think he would be able to sleep at all now, but soon his eye were closing, and Meera’s voice was fading to a whisper in his mind until he could almost swear it had never been there at all.

***

He woke to jerking movements; Hodor carrying him to Lord Brynden, and he would be mad at being woken, mad at being taken while asleep, but he wasn’t because he could hear the screams again. “Hodor,” he said, and his voice was careful. “Have you seen Meera or Jojen?” 

“Hodor,” he grunted back, and on his back, Bran sighed, fingers tapping an unfeeling beat on his thigh.

There was dust swirling in the air when they ducked into Lord Brynden’s chamber, and Bran was seized with a wild desire to reach out and grab the particles. _It looks like snow_ , he thought, _like Winterfell_ , and something in him cried out for the summer dustings and breathless snowball fights and _home_.

“Where are they?” he asked when Hodor had set him on the ground, and his voice sounded faint and thin, and he wished he were stronger, were braver, were able to stand up and yell like he wanted to.

“Asleep,” came the answer. A pause, while Bran furiously tried to work out what that meant--he had heard Meera screaming though, he _had_ \--and then, “Meera was moved back to your bedchamber after you left.” He opened his mouth then, to ask why he hadn’t been allowed to see her, to ask about the screaming, but Lord Brynden cut him off as Leaf walked forward, a chipped bowl cradled in her hands. “Here, Bran,” he said, nodding as Bran took the bowl.

Bran thought the paste looked different, maybe shot with more veins, but he tipped it to his lips all the same, choking back the bitter taste until--until it started to taste sweeter, lighter. He could hear Lord Brynden saying something about roots and the memory of the earth, or perhaps it was just Hodor mumbling in the background, but it was too late, he was already fading.

(He had not thought to ask about Jojen).

***

  
He was back at Winterfell, and the leaves were rustling around him, _in_ him, almost, it seemed. The godswood was empty, but then Robb crashed through, laughing and a boy still, a wooden sword clutched in his hand. “Oh, come off it, I beat you fair and square!” he was saying, and something in Bran ached to be there.

“Robb,” he whispered, but it was quiet, and even the leaves didn’t move at his words.

“I _let_ you win,” someone was saying, and he hoped it would be his father, or Jon, but it was Theon who followed Robb through the trees, a smirk plastered on his face and something in his eyes that scared Bran.

“No!” he screamed out, and saw his brother and Theon look to the heart tree, brows furrowed, but then he was being dragged back to the cavern, back to Leaf and Lord Brynden and Hodor. He was still screaming when he came to.

“The dead cannot hear you,” Leaf said as the cry melted from Bran’s lungs.

“They’re _not_ dead,” he answered, and he was angry now, because Robb wasn’t dead, he _wasn’t_ , he was a _King_ , and they were going to have an _adventure_. Leaf just bowed her head, looking even smaller in the flickering light, saying nothing.

“It’s time to go beyond this, Bran,” Lord Brynden said. “Time to let go of the past and unlock your potential. The past is always going to be there, and will always tempt you, but you need to learn to move beyond that lure, to be able to see things other than memories.”

“But-” Bran started.

“But nothing. I have things in my life I would like to revisit, but that is not our purpose Bran, not the purpose of the last greenseer. You need to go beyond this.” He nodded once again at Leaf, who carried the bowl back over the Bran, the last of the paste still clinging to its sides.

And Bran nodded, taking the bowl back into his grasp, and this time it was quicker, easier, and suddenly the cavern had disappeared...

...Only to reappear again, but it was _different_ this time; it was empty, shadowy. “Hello?” he called, but he knew it was a waste of time, knew that no one could hear him stuck inside the tree. It was queer to think of himself curled up behind the heart tree’s face, invisible and breathing along with the leaves.

And then a light flickered to life in the cavern, and he could hear footsteps coming closer and closer until--”Meera!” he blurted out, but still, no one looked over at the tree. But Meera was _crying_ , he realized, and she was scrambling to get away, but the entrance was blocked by singers, and he thought he saw Leaf among their number.

Meera threw herself on the ground then, and she looked like she was shielding something, and with a start, Bran realized what; _Jojen._ He was a heap on the ground, and even through the darkness, Bran thought he could see something like fear flash through his eyes. His voice was steady when he spoke, though, mumbled words about “death” and “his time.” Meera screamed then, a thin, piercing noise, and Bran almost shouted with her because this was last night, this was what he and Summer had investigated.

Somewhere, he was wondering if this was what Lord Brynden meant about reaching his potential, even though it was still the past. _It’s not Winterfell though_ , he thought, and he could hear Meera pleading through a haze, looking back to see the singers wresting her away from Jojen. _Oh no_ , Bran thought, because her voice had turned angry, and he could see her fighting back, a whirl of limbs and a symphony of screams. _Oh no,_ he thought again, something nagging at him, and he was frightened, he wanted to cover his eyes, to wish himself back into Winterfell’s godswood, but it was too late. 

Something silver flashed, and it seemed the air was being cut along with it as Jojen fell down and down and down until he collapsed on the ground, Leaf jerking him up and holding the chipped bowl by his neck. _Oh no_ , but it was no longer a whispered thought, a nagging feeling, but a scream, a scratching and stabbing. The lights around the cavern flickered, and Leaf stood up, the bowl careful in her hands, Jojen slumping back down to the ground. He saw Meera rush forward as if in a dream, cradling her brother in her arms, her scream turning to a whimper, to a sob on her lips, and then the cavern was rushing from him, going black, and he was grabbing at the air when he opened his eyes to Lord Brynden staring down at him.

***

  
 _It wasn’t real_ , he told himself as Hodor stumbled back to his room. _It wasn’t real, it wasn’t real._ The words bounced around his head, sharp and jagged and he almost cried out at their touch, but he didn’t, swallowed the cry with a bite because _it wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t real._

“Hodor,” Hodor grunted as he swung Bran off his back and onto his bed and Bran didn’t answer, didn’t even move, because he could see Meera standing in the shadows, her eyes big and frightened. _It wasn’t real,_ he told himself again as Hodor lumbered off and suddenly the room felt too small, too cramped because Meera wasn’t looking at him.

“How are you feeling?” he asked her, and he kept his voice careful. Meera didn’t answer, or maybe she did and he just couldn’t hear her, but she was still avoiding his gaze, shoulders twisted away from him, eyes shining in the torchlight. _It wasn’t real,_ he thought again as he said, “Is Jojen still sick then?” And then Meera was bringing her hands to her mouth and her shoulders were shaking, and she was _crying_ , but Meera didn’t cry, not ever, and Jojen was just _sick_ , because it wasn’t real, it wasn’t real.

 

***

  
“Where is Jojen?” he asked the next morning, and it seemed to him that he was always asking that. He gazed up at Lord Brynden until the roots and branches blurred and everything was a tangle of hazy white and blood red, and still he didn’t have an answer.  
  
“Jojen is,” Lord Brynden started suddenly, and Bran imagined his voice coming from the stained red mouth and he started, remembering himself curled up behind that face. “Gone.” And the word hung there a moment in the empty cavern, a delicate, frail thing, before it fell, crashed to the ground in a flurry of dirt and still Bran didn’t understand. “Everything is fated, Bran,” Lord Brynden continued. “Everything has already been written down by the time that you are born.”  
  
“Even death?” Bran asked, and his voice was small. He thought about that, and it didn’t seem fair, that somewhere there was a big book where his father would always die in King’s Landing. Summer padded over to him and he wondered if the old gods concerned themselves with animals too, if there were pages enough in their book for Summer, or Grey Wind, or the other direwolves.  
  
“Even death,” Lord Brynden answered.  
  
And he sat there, the ground hard and cold under his fingertips, and his head was so crammed full of memories, of words, of images, that it felt close to exploding. His eyes shut and his fingers scrambled at the ground now, as if looking for a way out, for an anchor. _Today is not the day that I die,_ Jojen’s voice was saying, but it _was_ , because then he could see Jojen slumped on the floor with the chipped bowl at his throat, and Jojen’s voice was fading, it was changing, and he was saying _he is not the one who needs to be afraid_ , and suddenly Bran wondered if he _knew_ , if Jojen had dreamed about the shadowy cavern and silver flashing knife and chipped bowl.  
  
He met Lord Brynden’s eyes then, and now he had an answer, and he was falling, falling, falling, but Lord Brynden kept speaking, kept saying words like “fate” and “sacrifice” and “strength” but Bran was past the point of hearing.

***

  
The next thing he knew, Leaf was standing over him with a bowl, the chipped white bowl, in her hands, and he was fighting, oh he was fighting, the words _not this way, not this way_ screaming out in his mind. But no one was fighting back, and he stilled, warily meeting Lord Brynden’s eyes. He had grown afraid of the three-eyed crow, he realized, afraid of him and afraid of what was in store for him, what words were written beside his name in the book of fate.

“Drink, Bran,” Lord Brynden said. “This is the path you must take, the path that has been set for you for many years now.” His mouth twitched when he saw Bran turn away, his shoulders hunched, his arms crossed, though from anger or amusement, Bran couldn’t say. “It had to be this way,” he said quietly, and it might almost be reassuring if it weren’t for the creaking branches, the flutter of the ravens far above. “He knew it was his fate, and he didn’t fight it.” The word _fight_ was a bite almost, a slap at Bran, sitting there, a resolute roadblock in front of the heart tree. “He _asked_ for this, Bran, asked to be able to fulfill his destiny, to help the greenseers any way he could.” He thought again of his vision of the cavern and the flashing silver knife; it didn’t _seem_ like Jojen was welcoming his fate; after all, who welcomed death besides the truly broken (and his own words floated back to him then, _I’d rather be dead_ , but he wouldn’t, not now, not anymore).

Wordlessly, Bran turned and accepted the bowl from Leaf, the paste already dropping onto his tongue, bitter and sour and then sweet, so sweet.

***

  
The first thing he heard was the wind, rising and falling and howling all around him. The second thing he heard was the clinking of glasses, the sloshing of liquid. Everything looked hazy and blurred, like he was looking through a pool of water, but he thought he saw a flash of dark hair and a brown dress. He thought he heard a whispered snatch of conversation amidst the wind, and the word _Winterfell_ stuck out at him, jabbed at him until he leaned forward, grasping and grasping, until he was falling out of the hazy and blurred room with the howling wind.

The first thing he felt was the cold biting at him. Everything here looked as if it had been sharped with a knife, and it hurt his eyes to look, all blinding white and splotches of black. A raven landed on the ground near him, cocking its head and cawing, but it was a white raven, and he almost reached for it, almost wanted to fly and fly and never go back. But he heard footsteps before he could do anything, and suddenly there were people huddled under black cloaks in front of him, and his heart leapt. _The Night’s Watch!_ He opened his mouth, to try and talk, but it came out as whispers, as rustlings of the wind, and he stopped. And then someone else was crashing forward, a man done up in motley, snow dusting his head.

And something in Bran grew cold, frozen at the sight of this man, even as he stood there silent, his fingers dancing along his legs. “I know, I know, oh oh oh,” the man said suddenly, but it was quiet, and it was faint and the other men ignored it. But he repeated himself, louder this time, and the men turned to him, anger on their faces. “In the cold and snow, the dead walk again,” he was saying, this fool who was no fool, “The trees have eyes, and the ravens fly, aye aye aye.” And then he turned to the heart tree, to Bran, and his voice was louder again, half a shout, “Fights with the sun, fights with the trees, but the cold ones will be the ones on top, I know, I know, oh oh oh.”

And Bran, hidden away behind the eyes of the old gods, felt his blood turn to ice in his veins, closed his eyes and wished for home, for his father, for Summer, for _anything_.

***

  
His bedchamber was dark, and idly Bran wondered if he would ever see true sunlight again, if his eyes would even be able to adjust to anything beyond the half-flickering light beneath the snow.

“Bran?” A choked whisper, grabbing at him through the dark.

“Hodor,” Hodor grunted, but he had already put Bran on his bed, had already started walking away.

“I’m here,” Bran whispered back, and then Meera was sitting next to him, her fingers curled over his.

“Jojen-” she started to say, but then she was biting back sobs again, but it sounded different, she was _angry_ now, not just sad.

And sitting there in the dark, Bran tried to think of how he could comfort her. He had been promised adventures when all his family had left him, had had Summer next to him when his father had died in King’s Landing, but this was _different_ , this was her _brother_. He imagined how he would feel if Robb had died, if it had been Robb forced to his knees at the point of a silver flashing knife. He imagined that, and suddenly he was gasping, suddenly it felt as though his heart was stopping.

And his hand turned over on the bed and he was grasping at Meera, hoping that it would be enough, somehow, that everything would fine like it always was in the stories.

And they sat there in the dark, the two broken children holding hands and swallowing sobs.  


  
***

  
Bran was sitting before Lord Brynden when Meera was brought in. Brought in, like a prisoner, like an animal for slaughter. A singer had tied her wrists with a frayed rope, but she wasn’t struggling; she was stock-still, but her eyes were bright with fear, with anger. She caught sight of Leaf the same time as Bran, her lips twisting as she took in the chipped bowl, the silver knife. _You will never be forgiven,_ her eyes said. _I will have my vengeance_.

“It is time,” Lord Brynden said, his voice clearer than Bran had ever heard it, “time to cement your path.” A beat, while Bran’s fingers danced along the roots that ran alongside him, while Meera’s eyes sought his and he thought that he had never seen anything burn brighter. “Everything is fated,” he said, and Bran was thinking that he’d heard this before and he stopped listening, focusing instead on the roots, on the beat of the raven’s wings far above.

Words slipped in, though, as they are wont to do; a stray “sacrifice” landed on Bran’s fingers, but he shook it off, shook off, too, the “blood” and “foraged bond” that landed alongside it. And he sat there, the roots and branches curling and twisting all around him until the cavern grew silent, until the silence beat a pattern on his skull, and he looked up to see Meera standing there in front of him.

“My sweet prince,” she said softly, but there was fear behind those words now, as bright and sharp as the knife being raised behind her.

It was quick, so quick; if he had blinked, he would have missed it. A flash, and it was done, it was over, and Meera was crashing to the ground, Leaf standing behind her, the blood running down the silver knife like a dream, like a nightmare.

She crumpled onto the roots, her blood spilling and spilling, a river of red on white, and above her, the ravens beat their wings and the branches and roots curled and twisted until Bran could move no longer.

And ensnared, his eyes blinking in the darkness, his fingers scrambling uselessly at the bark, he could taste blood in the back of his throat.


End file.
